Hello there !
Back to Sweden we go. We were a subject of Denmark, but I had not given any other information about the country. The general situation of the country is actually pretty bad:
1529
Development 26 provinces, 146 development
Income 19,13 (+4,86) That's the real issue. The Swedish AI barely built anything, except, you guessed it, shipyards.
Army 6/1/2 (22 FL) And here we go. They have an impressive navy of 32 with one carrack and 22 galleys. But 9k men.
Tech 10/9/10, all institutions, Trade 5, Offensive 5, Admin 1
I'm definitely not convinced by Trade ideas when you basically own one node, with 2 nodes upstream. That's probably something I will abandon at one point. Apart from that, the economy is horrible, and we can not afford going to Force Limit. Our tech is great, so at least that's something.
My first move will obviously be to gain independance. Luckily, we have very valuable nations willing to help us, while Denmark is diplomatically isolated.
That Poland has the PU over Lithuania and looks really stable for once.
On the other hand, Denmark has
SLIGO as their only ally. An impressive choice for sure. Interestingly, they have a PU on the Palatinate who is disloyal.
Before going into war, I had a quick look at Europe because we had not seen anything yet.
Nothing too strange here, no power has really consolidated. Castile did not get the Iberian Wedding and Scotland still holds strong, so no GB or Spain. Poland and Muscovy are looking great, and the two of them are actually allied, which is really uncommon and explains a lot.
The HRE is exactly what you would expect, I waited for 1.30.2 to start the run for that exact reason.
That's a very unsuccessful Reformation so far, but that can still change. We are firmly catholic and this is too late to get a center of Reformation, so I don't plan on changing, at least now.
Now, to the war:
The Palatinate is willing to ally because we are both disloyal. This makes Denmark extremely scared, and something very rare happens:
I'm now really worried that Denmark might also abandon the union on me and waste the opportunity of an easy war, so I declare immediately.
Denmark seems to be in a very sorry state too. You'd expect a bit more men, even if they quickly recruit.
Now that we are independant, we also have a new ruler:
And he is a complete disaster...
During our war, Muscovy jumps on the occasion. That forces me to rush for the Norwegian provinces. I'm fine with them reclaiming Novgorodian land, but Norway is mine.
We quickly get an heir, and he is much better. You can see Scotland sieging Sligo and getting sieged in return. They'll win the race to the capital and we'll easily kick Sligo out.
Finally, the war is won without any real difficulty.
We get the really bad Norwegian land because I honestly don't want to siege it anymore and I want to deny it to Muscovy. We also give one province to Poland so that they're not annoyed: we need them as an ally. I don't take the provinces in Karelia to avoid antagonizing Muscovy. And then I mostly take money. That honestly isn't much, but I'll have time for a second more useful war.
We now set our eyes towards a new target pretty much the only one we can access:
The run actually starts going sour, even if there is no apparent difficulty. Just paying for our army to wage wars incurs debt, having corruption from new land makes it worse. I start realizing that Sweden is actually in a worst spot than in 1444 and instead of expanding and snowballing, we have to stabilize things. A cruel king with horrible stats and bad events don't help either. I honestly did not expect Sweden to be difficult so I also played a bit careless until I fell into a bit of a debt spiral during that war.
Anyway, we still win it without any military difficulty:
Where is the OPM bank of old patches when you need it
That's enough expansion for now. Coring with a 1 admin ruler and dealing with revolts when he is cruel and we have super low legitimacy from a new dynasty is a real pain.
Meanwhile, Muscovy peaced out Denmark, took the Karelian provinces and forced them to release Norway. Good for us I guess, although Denmark and Norway quickly ally.
My intention of being peaceful is suddenly questioned when I am called to arms.
I have absolutely 0 intention of helping poor Poland, but I'll accept the call. We need allies. By the way, this happened because Poland and Muscovy both eclipsed Denmark, and Poland thought it would be a good idea to rival their ally Muscovy instead and lose their protection against the Ottomans. Good call.
Strong Ottomans.
Meanwhile, we pursue diplomacy.
Poland rivaled Muscovy, but Muscovy did not rival Poland, so they are not actually angry at us from being allied to Poland.
That can be really tricky to be allied to both of them, but it gives Sweden extra security, as Poland is getting carpetsieged by the Ottomans while I completely ignore the war and sit in Stockholm at 0 maintenance.
I push being a bad ally one step further when I declare my own war in the middle of all of that:
There is really no challenge anymore except dodging the numerous revolts that plague Norway and Denmark. Mecklenburg even jumps on Denmark too, and they start chain bankrupting.
We quickly peace out Norway, and the Ottomans finally end their war:
Sorry for not helping, Poland. I was really busy doing... stuff.
Much better. We improved relations to prevent coalitions. We also avoided taking the Polish province that the Ottomans forced them to return to Denmark, let's stay friendly. The AI might need allies.
We now control the most valuable provinces of Scandinavia. Owning Sjaelland also allows us to sell some of our navy.
Time to take a decision I very rarely take:
We finish coring and prevent several revolts during the next years. Meanwhile, poor Denmark bankrupts about once every year.
Our situation looks great on paper, with strong allies and a firm control over Scandinavia. But there are numerous weaknesses behind that. The economy still isn't great, our two main allies hate each other and we might have to make a choice (worst, the AI might have to make one, and this will probably be a bad decision). More worrying, our disaster ruler, numerous -stab events and the coring set us really far behind.
We have the worst tech in Europe. One might question my decision to abandon almost filled Trade ideas, and one might question even more why I decided to double down on Sweden and pick Quality instead. My thought process was that the AI was stable for now so I could fall behind in military, but Sweden would need to punch above its economical weight lategame once they eventually lost one or both of their allies, and potentially went to war with Muscovy (you never know). Stacking quality is probably the best option, and that's also historical. Offensive + Quality + Swedish ideas and events can make a REALLY scary Sweden lategame if they don't collapse. But for now, that set us behind.
We clearly improved, but I'm worried this might completely collapse in AI hands. The situation is clearly not stable, and the economy still isn't looking great.
1529
Development 26 provinces, 146 development
Income 19,13 (+4,86)
Army 6/1/2 (22 FL)
Tech 10/9/10, all institutions, Trade 5, Offensive 5, Admin 1
1553
Development 47 provinces, 339 development
Income 25,08 (+11,70)
Army 20/4/6 (46 FL)
Tech 10/10/10, no Printing Press, Offensive 7, Admin 2, Quality 3
We gained independance and more than doubled our development, and our army is a force to be reckoned with. But our economy is still pretty bad and our tech is a disaster. I would have also liked to turn Protestant or Reformed for stronger military bonuses, but adding more instability to Sweden was out of the equation. I can't stress out enough how surprised I was by the state of Sweden (and how bad it still is). It has potential, but a single bad war and they might go down the Danish route (who bankrupted 7 times or something).
For our next nation, I must admit I had rolled a Siberian Tribe and said... nope. I could have played it but honestly did not feel like it. My second roll was a lot more interesting. And in Europe too.
